My Method for Recording Breakage Patterns in Bones

My Method for Recording Breakage Patterns in Bones

            I recently have been tasked with analysing the zooarchaeological assemblage at Westward House. Myself and my tutor performed an initial assessment of the assemblage, and what immediately struck us was how consistently the bones were broken in specific places. I knew that this would be a major aspect of the assemblage, and set about looking at ways to record these breakages. To my surprise, there was little work creating a recording method to accurately say how many bones were broken in a certain way... So I created my own!

What are ‘Breakage Patterns’ and Why record them?

            Breakage patterns describe how the bone is broken, for example a humerus can be transversely split along the shaft. The breakages that are recorded are not modern damage, so they were not caused by the excavators! And they also are not gnawed of ends of butchered bits of bones, they are bones which have been broken in the past, ‘Ancient Breaks’, that may have been caused by humans or other taphonomic devices.

           

Because it is unknown what causes ancient breaks I believe it is very important to record them, to see any patterns emerging from the assemblage. For example, although I have only recorded around 300/400 bones so far from Westward House, I am already noticing patterns from the site that I would like to be able to quantify and interpret. For example longditidually split long bones are paticaularly common, which could have been due to individuals deliberately breaking them to extract marrow (See Figure 1). Another pattern I have noticed is transverse breaks through the distal and proximal shafts of metapodials (See Figure 2), although I haven’t been able to work out why this is yet, a method to record these will at least go to prove that this is far too commonly occurring to be a natural coincidence, and something strange is going with Cow feet!

Figure 1: Longitudinally Broken Long Bones from Westward House

Figure 2: One of many Transversely broken Metapodials from Westward House.

            How my Method works and How to Interpret the Results?

My method creates a three/four letter code that can be applied to any type of breakage pattern. The first one/two letters represent what element the breakage occurs on e.g. S for Scapula. The next section  is a number which represents what ‘zone’ (Area of the bone) is broken, e.g. a S1 is the glenoid cavity of a scapula. Although this might seem complicated, it is set out so a description of the zone can be read, and it follows the zonation scheme set out originally by Hambleton and Maltby, who have provided pictures to make it easy to follow!

Figure 3: An example of the coding system. Column 1 is the Elements name. Column 2 is the code to use for the element. Column 3 is a description of the zone, and Column 4 is what code to use for the zone.

The last piece of the code is to describe what the break looks like (See figure 4), which will be the last letter of the code. So S1T would be a transverse break across the glenoid cavity of a scapula.

Figure 4: Example Code for the breakage pattern type

This information can allow certain types of breakage patterns to be easily quantified in a number of ways. The simplest way is to count which is most common, e.g. 15 of H5T vs only one H1L would show a trend towards transverse breaks in distal Humerus. This can be further quantified to shows differences between phases of the site and even differences between feature types, which I will both be experimenting with at a later date. Once you have quantified it, patterns may start to appear, and once they do, how you interpret them is down to you!

I have not included the full the recording scheme due to myself continuously developing the scheme and working on it to get to a publishable state. If you are interested in using the recording scheme for your own work though, give me a shout on my email (Found in my about me section) and I will be happy to give you a copy!

The Festival of British Archaeology at Fishbourne Roman Palace

The Festival of British Archaeology at Fishbourne Roman 

Palace

This year will be my fourth consecutive year helping out at Fishbourne Roman Palace’s Festival of British Archaeology Event (FOBA), so I thought what better way to celebrate this then write about what makes this event so much fun to work on, and why I would urge anyone to come along!

The festival’s main selling point is the archaeological dig at the palace which anyone can join in. The excavation takes place on top of the spoil heaps at the site which are the two large mounds visible near the car park. The spoil heaps were chosen as the best area to excavate to help identify what was missed in the original excavations at the site. From the last four years of working on the spoil heaps, the excavations have shown that roof tile and oyster shells were very commonly ‘missed’ however some smaller finds were also missed as well.

Figure 1: Roman Tesserae found at Fishbourne’s FOBA event. Rare anywhere else in Britain, but if you have a good eye you are likely to find one here!

Over the past 4 years, as well as copious amounts of roof tile and oyster shell, I have seen people unearth building stone used in the palace (Very commonly), pottery and samian ware (quite commonly), Roman Tessearae (Also quite commonly), and animal bone and roman metalwork (A bit rarer). However my top finds from the past working there have to be one of the few Roman coins we have found in the spoil heaps, and my personal favourite which was 5 or 6 tesserae which were still mortared together, a chunk of a now lost mosaic.

As well as having the a large amount of finds, another positive of excavating the spoil heaps is that there is no ‘stratigraphy’ or contexts to record, meaning any levels of experience can come and have a go at digging without worrying about going through anything too important!

The excavation aspect of FOBA can go on for as long or little time as you want, however other activities are available at the site as well. Previous activities have included practicing archaeological drawing (See figure 2), using archaeological equipment such as dumpy levels (See figure 3) and geophysics and finally washing and recording your finds to take to an expert to identify!

Figure 2: Our planning grid/archaeological drawing activity at FOBA.

Figure 3: Our survey equipment/dumpy level activity at FOBA.

Although I can’t say for sure what activities will be available this year, I have been promised that the excavation is going to go ahead and will be one of the biggest yet. So if you fancy a day out excavating one of the most famous archaeological sites in Britain, this is a great opportunity to do so, and have a fun family day out at the same time!

I will be there every day that is not a Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday. So if you are around one of the days I am there and find something exciting (Preferably bone), remember to bring it to me first!

Fishbourne Roman Palace’s Festival of British Archaeology Event Runs from the 19 – 29^th July. The event is free to all paying visitors to the museum, however there is a suggested donation of £1 per digger to help pay for all the equipment etc that is used by the event.

Ageing Bones through Butchery Methods #1: The Iron Age

Ageing Bones through Butchery Methods #1: The Iron Age

As part of my course in Msc Osteoarchaeology, I have been researching a site called Westward House near Fishbourne. As part of this research I have been looking at identifying who occupied the site from the way they butchered animals which can be seen on the surviving animal bone. The way an animal is butchered varies from period to period. This was first recognised by Maltby (2007) who noted distinct patterns of Roman style butchery, that was unique to the period due to the appearance of specialist butchers for the first time. 

                  For this blog I have looked at the most common type of butchery found on bones from the Iron Age period. To do this I took the most detailed Iron Age butchery analysis available (Wilson 1978) and looked at whether the patterns noted, were reflected on other Iron Age sites, to create a few ‘tell-tale’ signs of an Iron Age butcher. 

Note: The following ‘signs’ have been developed for Cattle due to that being what my research at Westward House is focusing on. I haven’t tested this on other species yet! Some of these signs may also apply to other periods, however if a lot of these signs are occurring they do give a good indication that they are e.g. more likely to be Iron Age than Roman.

Sign #1: The Skull

                               The skull is commonly found in Iron Age deposits due to complete inhumations often being placed at the bottom of pits and ditches. The Iron Age hillfort of Battlesbury Bowl found a number of skulls, a number of which contained evidence of butchery. Cut marks were found around the cranium, eye socket/zygomatic and below the horn cores. This pattern was also found on skulls from Abingdon and Maiden Castle. This has been interpreted as the skinning of the skull to be used as decoration, e.g pole axed or hung.

                               Another sign to look out for on the skull is transverse cuts below the condyles of the mandible and cuts on the maxilla which were used to remove the tongue and cheek meat. This is different from the Roman period, were large cleaver marks are more commonly seen in these areas.

Sign #2: The Scapula

                               The scapula/shoulder blade is often a  focal point of butchery due to it often being used to disarticulate the upper limbs. The analysis of the Abingdon Iron Age material showed that small cut marks were common just behind the glenoid cavity in Iron Age remains. This is a pattern also seen at Maiden Castle and Battlesbury Bowl.

Figure 1: Scapula showing where the small precise cut marks were noted from the Abingdon assemblage. Wilson 1978.

     Sign #3: The Long Bones

                            

                             Long bones show a similar pattern to the scapula, with small fine cut marks being seen around the articulations of bones, for the purpose of disarticulation and meat removal. Common areas where fine knife cuts are seen are the distal Humerus (See figure 2), the Proximal Ulna and Radius (See figure 3) and proximal Metapodials. This method of butchery also appears on Iron Age animal bone assemblages such as Abingdon, Maiden Castle, Norse Road and Battlesbury Bowl. 

Figure 2: Diagram of the Distal Humerus showing where the small precise cut marks were noted from the Abingdon assemblage. Wilson 1978.

Figure 3: Diagram of the Proximal Ulna showing where the cut marks were noted from the Abingdon assemblage. Wilson 1978.

Figure 4: Diagram of Proximal Metapodials showing where the cut marks were noted from the Abingdon assemblage. Wilson 1978.

Sign #4: The Astragalus and Calcaneus

                          The final, and one of the most distinct, Iron Age butchery marks is from the Astragalus and Calcaneus bones. When the Astragalus and Calcaneus are articulated (as shown in figure 5), a large number of transverse cut marks are seen, particularly on the anterior Astragalus. This is a pattern seen on Iron Age sites such as Maiden Castle and Abingdon where they were noted as being ‘prolific’ (Wilson 1978). 

Figure 4: Diagram of the Astragalus and Calcaneus showing where the cut marks were noted from the Abingdon assemblage. Wilson 1978.

Other Iron Age butchery methods have been noted and are worth a mention such as the trimming of the vertebral column and cut marks around the articular areas of vertebrae. However the few ‘Signs’ outlined give a good indication of where typical Iron Age butchery can be seen, and shows how the analysis of butchery can be used to date a bone assemblage.

 Although it is possible that e.g. cut marks on the astragalus can be from the Roman or Medieval periods, when a large assemblage contains a lot of these signs it is likely to be Iron Age. Furthermore, another interesting aspect about Iron Age butchery is the lack of chop and cleaver marks, with small cut marks often being the only type of butchery being seen, almost being as distinctive as the signs outlined above.

Bibliography/Further Reading

Armour-Chelu, M., 1991.  The Faunal Remains.  In: Sharples, N. Maiden Castle: Excavations and Field Survey 1985-1986.  London: English Heritage Archaeological Report. 19, 139-151.

Maltby, M., 2007. Chop and Change: Specialist Cattle Carcass Processing In Roman Britain. In: Croxford, B., Ray, N., Roth, R. and White, N. (Eds.) TRAC 2006: Proceedings of the Sixteenth Annual Theoretical Roman Archaeology Conference. Oxford: Oxbow Books.

Wilson, B., 1978. Methods and Results of Bone Analysis. In: Parrington, M.,1978. The Excavation of an Iron Age Settlement, Bronze Age Ring Ditches and Roman Features at Ashville Trading Estate Abingdon. Oxfordshire: Oxfordshire Archaeological Unit Report 1.

The Midhurst Mystery Bone’s

The Midhurst Mystery Bones


I was recently taken to an area of the Sussex downs, near the town of Midhurst, by my girlfriend to go on a geocaching trip and see all the places she used to play when she was younger. The area was heavily wooded, with a few grassland clearances and streams. The area was perfect for deer and although we were not fortunate enough to see one, we did see multiple deer tracks along the bank of the river we were following. 

            In one of the larger pools of the river I spotted a bone. After fishing it out, I found that it was instantly recognisable as it was a bone I have encountered a number of times and have developed a way of always being able to recognise it!

Figure 1: The Bone in the River Bed

The river then led to a large ditch where I found two more bones, seemingly associated with each other, on the edge of the bank. I immediately knew what elements these bones were from, however to definitely attain a species identification I took them to compare against Bournemouth Universities reference collection.

            As mentioned, the first bone was instantly recognisable as it has a very distinctive feature only found on one particular species. I first encountered this bone whilst working at Fishbourne Roman Palace. A visitor to the site was carrying a large cylindrical tube, within it was the same bone as the one I found at Midhurst, however it was almost twice the size. The bone was a Metacarpal from a Deer. The bone is instantly recognisable due to deep groves along both the posterior and anterior shafts, which are only found on Deer metapodials. Personally I always thought that these grooves always made the bones look like sticks of celery, however the curator, Robert Symmons, said that his way of remembering it is that they look more like ice skates!

            The bone found in the river at Midhurst showed these two grooves as well, showing that it was also from a deer. This specimen was a Metatarsal rather than a Metacarpal as the distal end was shaped like a D rather than a neat C shape. The final piece of analysis to do was to look at what species of deer it was. To do this I compared the bone between the three species of Deer you would expect to find in the area, and the closest match was Fallow Deer, with the size falling in between the range of the Roe and Red Deer (See Figure 2). 

Figure 2: Roe Deer Metatarsal (Bottom), The Midhurst Metatarsal (Middle) and a Red Deer Metatarsal (Top)

The final two bones that were discovered was a distal tibia and a calcaneus. To discover what species these were from I worked on the assumption they were from the same animal. The calcaneus was like no calcaneus I had seen before, with both ends being concave, rather than one end concave and one convex. Because of this I knew that this was not going to be a species I was very familiar with, so I could rule out medium sized mammals such as dog and sheep.

The only species that I could think of being present in the area of this size was badger. When these were matched up, I found that the calcaneus of a badger had a concave end, and the distal tibia fitted as well showing it also badger and was probably from the same animal.

Figure 3: The Midhurst Calcaneus (Bottom) compared to a Badger Calcaneus (Top). 

Figure 4: The Midhurst Tibia (Bottom) compared to a Badger Tibia (Top). 

My exploring of the woods around Midhurst led me to learn more about a species that I did not know much about before, with a couple of badger bones being found. Like the deer metapodials which I also found on this walk, the uniqueness of the calcaneus of badger led me to its identification, and now whenever I found a concave calcaneus, I will know to check against badger first!

Entheseal Change Analysis and the Potential for Zooarchaeology

Entheseal Change Analysis and the Potential for Zooarchaeology

            I have recently been learning about entheseal analysis of human skeletal material. Entheses are locations on bone where tendons and ligaments attach, the surface of which can vary between individuals due to repetitive stress on the muscle being reflected on the muscle attachment on the bone. Entheses have been analysed in bioarchaeological contexts to look at reconstructing life histories of individuals, by looking at whether any changes are present at particular entheses sites, and attributing these changes to a certain physical activity.

An example of this is Yonemoto’s (2016) study of Japanese populations in the 15^th to 19^th centuries, where the effects that different occupations had on entheseal change was assessed. The analysis showed different levels of entheseal change for different occupations, due to different repetitive areas of stress on the body occurring depending on what their occupation involved e.g. Fishermen who were known to load and unload boats had high levels of entheseal change in ankle and foot joints. However as I am more interested in zooarchaeology rather than human osteology, although I found the case studies very interesting, I immediately began to think of how this could be applied to animals.

Figure 1: Yonemoto’s study of entheseal changes in Japan discovered individuals occupations such as Fisherman, which was backed up by other evidence such as paintings.

To check whether this has been done before I conducted a quick literature search and found a distinct lack of articles applying this technique to animals.  One study I did find by Ninimak and Salmi (2014), looked at entheseal changes in reindeer. The study looked a Reindeer that performed a range of different activities including free roaming reindeer, species kept in a zoo and draught animals and studied the entheses using the same methods you would apply to a human skeleton. The results showed differences between all uses of the species. Differences between zoo and free roaming reindeer were found in the upper arm bones, interpreted as different feeding techniques. An overall higher rate of entheseal change across all bones in the free roaming reindeer was also found, and was  interpreted as due to their large scale migration patterns causing repetitive strain on certain muscle attachments. Further patterns were shown in the draught reindeer with increased entheseal change in the hind limbs, which was interpreted as repetitive strain from pulling weights behind them e.g. a sleigh.

Figure 2: Analysis by Ninimal and Salmi showed evidence for Reindeers being used to pull weights behind them e.g. Sleighs. Photo: Wikipedia

                  I believe that if this technique is applied more frequently to other species of animal, zooarchaeologists could discover a lot more about past human-animal relationships. As shown in the Reindeer case study, analysis of entheses can show what activities the animal undertook, which is usually invisible archaeologically. Examples of this could be the analysis of cattle entheses which may show changes in upper limb bones due to ploughing, which is rarely seen archaeologically. Other possibilities may include the analysis of dog remains to identify whether they were used for hunting over long periods of time or traction e.g. sleigh pulling, or horses which may face entheseal change during horseback riding.

                  Although problems with the recording of entheseal changes exist, due to all existing methodologies only relating to human bone, the simple recording of the presence or absence of entheseal change may give information about the animal’s life history, and what it was used for in the past.

References/Further Reading

Ninimaki, S. and Salmi, A K., 2014. Entheseal Changes in Free-Ranging Versus Zoo Reindeer—Observing Activity Status of Reindeer. International Journal of Osteoarchaeology. 26 (2). 314 – 323.

Yonemoto, S., 2016. Differences in the Effects of Age on the Development of Entheseal Changes Among Historic Japanese Populations. American Journal of Physical Anthropology. 159. 267 – 283.

The Burpham Corvid

The Burpham Corvid

I recently visited the small village of Burpham, nearby to Arundel on the South Coast of England, for a walk with my girlfriend and family. The village is set nearby to the river Arun and (importantly!) near the RSPB wildlife reserve, which is home to a number of species of bird.

                We visited the village to collect a number of geocaches (which my girlfriend, Soph, has written a blog about here), which involves finding a number of hidden containers from supplied GPS co-ordinates. However when approaching one of the geocaches, I instead spotted an incredibly well preserved skull, which was instantly recognisable of that of a medium sized bird (Figure 1).

Figure 1: The Bird Skull as it was discovered in Burpham 

The skull displayed a large brain case and long narrow beak (Figure 2). Although these features would be instantly recognisable to a Bird specialist, I am not as confident on my avian identification skills as I am my mammalian Identification, so I could not confidently identify the skull at first glance. However once I sent the pictures to the bird specialist at my university, the features mentioned above were shown to be indicative of a bird from the Corvid Family.

Figure 2: The Corvid Skull with scale. 

To take the identification of the skull further I took the skull into the stores of Bournemouth University, and compared it to a number of Corvid skulls. The stores housed three different bird skulls from the Corvid family, magpie, jackdaw and crow. The magpie and jackdaw craniums, although displayed a large brain case, show significant differences in the beak sizes, with the cranium found at Burpham showing a longer, slender beak than the two shown in figure 3. 

Figure 3: Comparison of the Jackdaw and Burpham Cranium (Top) and Magpie and Burpham Cranium (Bottom). 

         The final comparison I made was that of crow (Corvus spp.). Although there was a size difference between the two specimens, this was the closest match, with large similarities being shown in the brain case. The crow from the reference collection was that of a female, with sexual dimorphism being high in birds, it is possible that the Burpham cranium represents a Male, accounting for the differentiation in size. However as I have only compared against three corvid species it is also possible that the skull could represent another ‘Crow sized’ corvid such as a rook, however I currently have no reference to compare against.

Figure 4: Comparison of the Crow and Burpham Cranium. 

For now the skull will remain as ‘Corivd, likely Crow’, however I hope to learn more about avian bone in the future and will be exploring the resources out there for avian archaeology in future blogs, so the Burpham Skull may make another appearance soon!

The Westward House Project: The Aims and Objectives

The Westward House Project: The Aims and Objectives

         I have always been interested in the Iron Age/Roman transitional period in my local area of Chichester and Fishbourne, so for my Master’s degree dissertation I wanted to look at something zooarchaeological in the area. Fortunately I was presented with the opportunity to do this by Fishbourne Roman Palace, who introduced me to the site of Westward House.

         The site of Westward House is located nearby to Fishbourne Roman Palace, however the activity there pre-dates the palace itself.  The dating of the site currently relies on pottery evidence, with early imported Roman Pottery and Late Iron Age coarse pottery dating features to around AD 30. Usually this site would be interpreted as being occupied by Iron Age inhabitants, due to it predating the Roman Invasion of AD 43, however a military building found directly underneath Fishbourne Roman Palace has led to some authors to suggest that the Roman Military had settled in the area before the invasion. 

Figure 1: Site plan of Westward House (In Box) showing the nearby military granaries underneath Fishbourne Roman Palace. Allen 2011

The Roman Military remains underneath Fishbourne Roman Palace consist of timber framed buildings and ditches, interpreted by Cunliffe (1998) as granaries used by the military. The dating of the military phase at Fishbourne is poor, even though the site has the potential to pre-date the Roman Invasion. Due to the close proximity of Westward house to the military building underneath Fishbourne, it has been suggested that the two sites might be part of the same large military complex, which if that is the case, could prove that the Roman military were in Fishbourne before the Roman Invasion.

         To look at who occupied the site I am going to be looking at the animal bones from the site. To do this I plan to look at how the animal bone from the site is butchered. Iron Age and Roman butchery practices vary greatly, so from analysing these remains It should be possible to determine whether it was the Roman military or the local Iron Age population who were present in the area before the Roman Invasion.

         I aim to keep updating my blog with more information about the project as time goes on. I am aiming to complete the project by September, however I hope to write up more detailed information about the project as well. Including information about; 

- The Regini (The tribe who occupied the area)

- The difference in Roman and Iron Age butchery practices 

- Information about the site itself

- Some of the more interesting animal bones I find! (I have already found a Bear toe, which I will hopefully be writing about soon!)

References/Further Reading

Allen, M., 2011. Animalscapes and Empire: New Perspectives on the Iron Age/Romano-British Transition. Ph.D thesis. University of Nottingham.

Cunliffe, B., 1998. Fishbourne Roman Palace. Gloucestershire: Tempus Publishing Ltd.